The Loons

An early morning fog obscures the distant shore

and the island in between. Invisible in this obscurity

a loon calls out into the silence, his long, mournful cry

a glissando rising and repeating itself, echoing;

and then silence, a deep, utter silence, deafening,

but a silence broken again by his calling out once more,

or a response returned, warbling back in answer,

some tremolo’d conversation we cannot understand,

but only imagine. Its echo lingers and reverberates,

an eerie, forlorned call as we lie beneath our covers

awaiting the sun’s warmth to rouse us from our sleep,

slumbering still, a greeting this foggy morning, reminding

us where we are, here, at the lake, or perhaps it is a warning

of our intrusion into this realm we share with them:

loon and lake and us, an early morning fog, obscured.